The state of the vaccines

It is a vaccine and it is not gene therapy.

 

Yes, in all likelihood it will become an annual vaccine like the flu shot, adapted to new variants. This, because we have so many IDIOTS who won't accept the vaccine (present company excluded; I know why you're hesitant and it is understandable, but all those imbeciles don't have your reasons, and they keep saying insanities like it's gene therapy when it is not, and other stupidities and conspiracy theories) therefore we will likely not achieve herd immunity, therefore the virus will encroach and become endemic, and will continue to mutate.

We have fabulous and safe vaccines that are so efficacious that they would be able to beat the virus into herd immunity if everybody wanted them... but we'll not be able to do it because of the dumb people who are against them. It drives me crazy.

 

Have there been any recent studies on what level of vaccination is needed to achieve herd immunity?
Are we still working on 75%?

 

You can't have a study that will find the correct number, given the huge variable factors regarding human behavior, density of population, climate, infectiousness of the variants, and so on and so forth (557 and I have exchanged many messages on this, back there somewhere in our posting history where we talked about all the various factors). So this is a case of the more the better. I think to be sure we'd need 85% but will never get there. I'm afraid we won't even go above 65%. We'll see.

 

I read those exchanges.
I was just wondering if there were any new information.

 

Well, what is new, is the presence of more infectious variants. The higher the R naught number, the higher the percentage of vaccinated people that is needed in order to achieve herd immunity. That's why my estimate went up and I'm now talking of 85%. What also changed is the notion that natural infection with the ancestral strain is lousy in terms of good immunity so we need to rely more on the vaccines than on the people who caught the virus and survived. The new variants seem to be more able to re-infect the people who had the disease before, which defeats herd immunity.

 

What is the target percentage-wise for herd immunity?

I love this video.

 

It's variable according to the infectiousness of new variants, population density, human behavior, etc. To be sure I'd hope for 85% while knowing that we won't reach this number.

 

No, it is not.

Yes, it is. Moderna themselves call it gene therapy.

 

As a "doctor", you should know full well that vaccines have absolutely NOTHING to do with herd immunity and that the association of 'herd immunity' with "% vaccinated" is a very recent post-covid redefinition of the term (to fit the covid fear mongering narrative).

 

All of them are dangerous, as they all have the same end result of instructing one's body to create the "spike protein". Some jabs make use of a viral vector instead, but even those jabs end up causing one's body to do the same thing in the end.

 

The Indian variant, B.1.617.2, is now starting to spread in the United Kingdom. While the Kent variant (B.1.1.7) has started to drop there, the total number of new cases seem to remain on a plateau due to the B.1.617.2 picking up the slack.

So far it does seem like the existing vaccines are effective against the B.1.617.2, which exhibits a smaller ability to evade the vaccines than the South African strain (B.1.351) and the Brazilian Manaus strain (P.1).

 

Good grief.

 

FDA: Pfizer vaccine is now authorized for children ages 12 and older. Good.

 

No. Not good.

 

Indonesia tracked 128,290 health workers in capital city Jakarta from January to March and found that the CoronaVac vaccine protected 98% of them from death and 96% from hospitalization as soon as seven days after the second dose. 94% of the workers had been protected against symptomatic infection -- an extraordinary result that goes beyond what was measured in the shot’s numerous clinical trials (in Brazil it was only efficacious to 50.3%).

 

This statement is definitely in line with what I read from another thread: open-letter-to-the-who-immediately-halt-all-covid-19-mass-vaccinations-geert-vanden-bossche-dmv-phd. Apparently his concerns aren't peer-reviewed or rebutted yet and to be honest, I admire the scientific community even more because I consider myself to be fairly fluent in English yet I had an incredibly hard time reading this paper.

So from what I understand of his concerns/what's been happening: Is that lately, the viruses have promoted more viral spread or viral shedding, and this apparently is because(at least, from him) that the vaccines are relaxing the natural immunities that we have, which would in his hypothesis force us to use other immunities and as an end result, we will eventually essentially be all vulnerable to the virus.

Again, his hypothesis I claim absolutely nothing. I only brought it to your attention because I thought you'd have an educated opinion on his opinions and that'd be helpful. Reading his paper also made me think/recall that there are numerous types of vaccines not just a couple:

https://www.hhs.gov/immunization/basics/types/index.html

So another question sprung to mind: Have any organizations attempted to created the other vaccine types(ie: Live vaccines) that appear to be more attuned to strengthening the 'natural' immune system(as per HHS)? Of course, according to the same the Messenger RNA carries no risk of viral infection, whereas live vaccines do. So everything's a trade off it seems.

I do think it's a tad bit concerning that the way the world is headed, and Mr. Vanden's hypothesis of a virus spreading because of our weakened immune system seem to be(from my layman's eyes) to be what's happening.

 

It's full-blown nonsense and junk science. These vaccines are highly protective. They don't spread the disease and they don't make people more susceptible to the disease, much the opposite, as seen in the very low need for hospitalization and very rare deaths for those who still catch the virus despite being vaccinated (protection is not 100% but it is pretty darn good).

No, there isn't more spread of the disease because of the vaccines. It's the opposite. The countries with LOW vaccination rates like India and Brazil are the ones with huge surges. The countries with high vaccination rates like Israel and the United Arab Emirates are the ones with low transmission. Any idea to the contrary is a ridiculous conspiracy theory, and this article you have introduced is one such example.

There is this romantic idea that our natural immune system should take care of it. It makes sense to expose children to the common cold and benign intestinal viruses and the such, to prime and train their immune system. But we don't expose them to the really dangerous ones. Would you like to expose your child to Ebola, tuberculosis, cholera, meningitis, polio, etc., to train her immune system? You'll end up with a dead child. For the dangerous ones, we use vaccines.

And no, there is no advantage in doing a Covid-19 vaccine with live virus, given that the mRNA vaccines actually have better immunogenicity in terms of fostering high titers of neutralizing antibodies than the natural infection, as per a paper I've already linked to, in this thread.

 

I think I'll stop trying to say anything at all about Covid-19, the vaccines, and other medical matters. I'll abandon my State of the Vaccines thread (I hope other people will keep it going), and others. Why? Because I'm sick and tired of the conspiracy theories and all the BS that is said about it every day, including here. At this point, my attitude is changing to "You don't want the vaccines? You don't believe in masks if you're still susceptible? You think the virus is no big deal? You harbor conspiracy theories about the virus and the vaccines? Cool. Be my guest and earn the Darwin Award. Just don't come to my hospital seeking treatment if you get sick."

 

Another voice of sanity and reason silenced at PF.

 

Thanks but I'm not silenced; I'm just moving on to other topics. I'll continue to post about politics from time to time.

 

Silenced by exhaustion. THAT is the core problem.

 

It only takes a moment to create a lie. But it can take hours to falsify that lie; especially when any and all crackpot sources are allowed. Any claim, no matter how absurd, is allowed. Any lie, no matter how damaging or dangerous or ridiculous, is allowed; even if that lie can and likely will kill people.

And when you do take the time and make the effort to prove a claim is untrue, that proof is forgotten by the next page. And the same people just keep coming back with the same debunked lies. For every ounce of truth there is an ocean of lies.

 

I hope you don't.
It seems unfair to deprive those of us that find your informative posts very valuable just because a few people, who if brains were gunpowder wouldn't have enough to blow their noses, are so dumb they wouldn't recognise the truth if you wrote it on a large turbot and slapped them in the face with it.

 

Sorry. I kind of already did. Full explanation here:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...towel-on-covid-19-im-out-of-the-topic.588082/

LOL, what's with you Brits and our compulsion for slapping people with large fish?